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Eleanor's Blog

Fresh from the battlefield known as the House of Representatives, where men outnumber women more than six to one, I take some comfort in knowing there are more women than men in this country – and more women who vote. The bunch of men who run the House have not used their majority to tame the banks or the corporations that gave us the Great Recession.

The United States did it again at the 2012 Olympics, coming away with more medals than any other nation. That didn’t rock the world, but how we did it should have -- American women stole the show! Women’s sports can rarely be found on prime-time broadcast television. Yet U.S. women left London with significantly more medals than our men, who dominate our airwaves. U.S.

The D.C. post-20-week abortion ban bill marks the first time in United States history that a standalone bill has come to the floor to deny the residents of the Nation's Capital the same constitutional rights as other Americans. Those behind this bill have picked on the District to get a phony federal imprimatur on a bill that targets Roe v.

Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), who I know has been a student of history and of the Constitution, filed amendments in a committee last month that would have overturned D.C. laws. As a result, a bipartisan group of Senators withdrew their budget autonomy bill for the District of Columbia on the advice of city officials, including me.

“Hometown D.C. has always had a vibrant, pulsing musical and cultural life, but the overbearing presence of official Washington often smothered the identity of hometown Washington as much as it trampled our rights as American citizens. Americans knew the nation’s capital, but could not tell the difference between official Washington and hometown D.C.

The press reporters a serious Republican split with only a 50/50 chance that Republicans can get their members to agree on a payroll tax deal. Line that 50/50 Republican split up against their near-unanimous opposition to having wealthy and corporate taxpayers contribute one dime to deficit reduction.

Here is one for the books. The Democrats create a 100% private-sector solution to long-term care, the most costly health care crisis affecting the American people, and the Republican House has just repealed it. The Republican repeal of the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS) Act is going to go down as a historic blunder.

If I asked the average American what should be the first vote in the House? For sure, she would say extend payroll tax, unemployment insurance, and the doc fix. What is our first bill? Disapproval of raising the debt ceiling. For what? To remind Americans that Tea Party Republicans brought us the loss of our triple-A rating for the first time in American history?